Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 1:24 amPosts: 2785Location: A step closer to home

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 3:58 pm

I'd personally say that #4 is instrumental while the rest are not. I mean, an instrumental song is one that lacks vocals, so if it has any at all which were recorded for the album, even a choir or whispered hums, I'd consider it to not be instrumental. In my opinion #5 wouldn't be "instrumental" either, since it literally doesn't feature instruments...

That's just my two cents, though. I'd wait for more people (lke mods) to give their thoughts.

I also agree. Though the silent track in Type O Negative's debut is marked as an instrumental.

Not anymore. An idea, but in addition to the "instrumental" option, perhaps "silence" or "other". That way, one can view an album page and not falsely assume that the song doesn't have lyrics available or known, or incorrectly mark it as instrumental ... (Essentially understanding that said song is total silence or whatever ...)

Okay, I beg to differ when it comes to the "must have instruments to be considered an 'instrumental'"...

The Dictionary wrote:

instrumental° (music) A composition without lyrics.

Wikipedia has a good summary of what're considered "borderline cases" of instrumentals. I don't think tracks of pure dead silence, whether included as a point of artistic merit, or simply a tracking mistake, should differ from any other "song" without clear instruments (e.g., droning ambience, field recordings, static waveforms, etc).

So my definition of an "instrumental" is simply any track that doesn't feature any vocalised lyrics in the recording, or serves as some sort of interlude.

Which seems to comply with the dictionary's own definition of the word...

Alright. I guess it would make sense in our context and simplify matters to regard everything without "vocalised lyrics", as Al put it, as an instrumental. Tracks only containing silence may not technically be instrumental in an accurate sense, but if we treat the definition as strictly complementary to any non-instrumental, i.e. songs with sung lyrics (that aren't samples from a third party/source), then they are. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assert that people looking through the database see "instrumental" more as "does not feature singing" and less as "does not feature singing but instruments", if you catch my meaning.

What about karaoke tracks that retain a few of the original vocal lines, as sort of guidelines for the listener? I've been tagging them as instrumentals so far. (On some Animetal-cd's.)

In my opinion, even these songs should be labeled as instrumental, since they are all, as one can imagine, fully instrumental. Probably the lyrics are featured in the booklets, but the actual tracks are karaoke ones and so they have no sung lyrics at all.

Don't think there's such a thing. "Instrumental" as a "noun", as you refer to it, is a shortened version of "instrumental music/song", where it poses as an adjective.

Anyway, I'm joining the "instrumental = no vocalized lyrics" club. The human voice can be considered as an instrument as far as I'm concerned when no lyrics attached, so we have "choir, scream, aahs" covered; the movie dialogue snippet falls under "samples" so we have that covered as well.

The last in your list - total silence - is a tougher call though, and might be worthy of a dedicated discussion.

Don't think there's such a thing. "Instrumental" as a "noun", as you refer to it, is a shortened version of "instrumental music/song", where it poses as an adjective.

Sorry, but there pretty obviously is such a thing. Just because it derived from a noun phrase where "it" "was" the adjective doesn't mean that as the shortened version it still acts as such. You're confusing form with function.

Probably, yeah. Are you sure "form" also includes "colloquial form" in it though?

Alhadis wrote:

yentass wrote:

The last in your list - total silence - is a tougher call though, and might be worthy of a dedicated discussion.

Has this discussion not been dedicated enough already?

I don't see where it even existed (I speak of total silence, not the definition of instrumental. Total silence is different because it doesn't feature vocals nor instruments, so referring to it either as "instrumental" or not has a degree of merit while being quite a stretch at the same time).

Probably, yeah. Are you sure "form" also includes "colloquial form" in it though?

It wouldn't make any difference (if I understand you correctly). But the fact remains that "instrumental" as a noun is an accepted term for what we're talking about here. It's not some edgy, trendy neologism language purists wrinkle their noses at. Saying "there is no such thing" is silly, especially with language. It's like saying "sabbatical" isn't (also) a noun since there's also "sabbatical year". (not the best example, but for some reason the only one I can think of right now)

I'll explain myself better then, to make sure you understand me correctly - the usage of "instrumental" (or "sabbatical", or "mental" etc.) as a noun is, to my utmost understanding, not grammatically correct regardless of how accepted the term is; therefore applying grammatical rules on words that defy said rules in the first place comes off as somewhat odd to my eyes. It's kinda like referring to "fucking" as an adjective just because of the common use in this fucking language (see what I did there?).

Also, if we're talking language already - I never said that "there is no such thing" but merely that I "Don't think there's such a thing" i.e. I expressed doubt about something that doesn't make sense to me and not some kind of superior knowledge I most probably lack.

Well, it is grammatically correct. That's really all there is to it, simple as that. English is pretty flexible there. Sure, there are some similar adjectives that can't be used that way (your example of "mental", for instance), but language is an ever-changing entity and prescriptive rules don't always completely overlap with reality. (they do in this case, though ) Same for "fucking", in that usage it is a participle verb form used in an adjectival fashion. It can also function as a noun, adverb, part of an interjection, etc... Not to mention the millions of other uses for the stem "(to) fuck". Are you seriously saying that using it that way is incorrect English?

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread any further, so let's just agree to disagree, I guess?

Also, if we're talking language already - I never said that "there is no such thing" but merely that I "Don't think there's such a thing" i.e. I expressed doubt about something that doesn't make sense to me and not some kind of superior knowledge I most probably lack.

Fair enough. I still think it's a bit strange and counter-intuitive considering reality. I guess that's the linguist in me.